How do you handle Death?
 

How do you handle death? Over the past 2 weeks, two of my cats died. Both were old but to have both die so close to each other was hard. Maybe one was missing the other. I just think that I handle death in a strange way. When they died I cried like anyone would. But once we buried them I just went back to my normal self. Being happy and stuff. I feel guilty for doing this but I guess that is the way I get over death. I think I even did this when my friend died last year. Except I did cry for longer.

So how do you get over death?

Well... My two grandfathers died one after another too... Both died in the same week. It was very hard for me when it happened. But I never hold emotions for too long. Emotions are very strong when they come, but they fade away quickly for me. Dunno if I should feel guilty, just my way of moving on. But sometimes I think about my grandfathers, and feel a sorrow that I never got to say goodbye to them.

I had never really had anybody I knew die. But I will tell you guys this. Do you think your loved ones would want you to stay sad for life, just because they have left you? It's OK for you to feel bad that they are gone, but to be depressed all your life isn't gonna make you feel any better. To be guilty that you are happy, even though they died, well, I don't know what to say.

Im not feeling guilty... Death is a natural thing, and my dad's dad was suffering anyways, but I still get sad from time to time, which i think its alright.

Thinking about me dying: I don't think about it. Billions of other people have died in the past and it's nothing unnatural. Just be happy and don't think about it, then it's over without any worry. It's also very nice to think that we've been experimenting with cloning throughout the past years.

Thinking about others dying: It doesn't really bother me that much. Barely any people I've knew have died, and it's never affected me much. I'm convinced it's because my brain has something called ''mind walling'', which basically means it shuts off emotions sometimes to protect the person. This also goes for me not going ''OMG YAY'' when something awesome happens.

Regarding other people's deaths. I haven't lost anyone close to me for a long time - not anyone I cared for immensely. So how I'd react now, I cannot say.

Regarding my own death. It's funny you bring the topic up at such a time. I've gone by quite a few years without worrying myself about death, but for reasons I can't begin to explain, my mind keeps drifting on the matter when I'm in bed, or in the shower. It's quite annoying. I've managed to cope with it by instantly turning my mind to other matters: as CS says, just think happy thoughts. :p

All of my hamsters have died, as you would expect, and small pets like that are very good in preparing you for a major death later.

Last year my dad's parrot died. He's been with us longer than I have, and despite the fact that the bird (Charlie) hated me and my brother for "replacing" him as the baby, I was incredibly upset when he suddenly died for no apparent reason. Please do not bring up bird flu over this matter.

It is interesting that a thread like this should come up now. I have a strong suspicion that one of my family members will be gone soon, though everyone seems to be avoiding the issue with my generation in the family.

Death i look forward to and can't wait for.

Life is such a chore and considering the state of society now, it's going to get worse. Okay, fine, i could be a loaded millionaire who wouldn't have to mingle with the Lessers - but that wouldn't make it any better, and 'cos i adore England more than what is deemed normal, i'd much rather die than see it rot.

Death of others though i'd probably take quite hard. When my Dog died that effected me for a bit, but not as long as i thought it would've done. However, a death of a close family member will probably end up tipping me into a bit of a dark place for a while.

But meh.

Death will be such a relief - people just don't know it yet.

The thing that terrifies me most about dying is that I'll never finish my fanfic.

Seriously.

I remember when a very good friend of me died, last fall.
He was a... horse. A gelding. I liked him very much. And I also knew him about years.
It happened one day, that he lost weight.
I asked very scared: ":eek: Why does he lose weight? "
His owner said: "It's because of his waterworks. There's a problem. That's why he is anorectous. But we do everything to help him!"

A week later he looked a bit better, but I still saw his ribs :|...
And the owner said: He could be healed in one or two weeks! :)
My gelding also ate more :) And I was so glad, he did.

Then I got vacation. In this time I didn't go to the court...
I'm so ashamed, I didn't... :|
I thought, I have vacation now. Time to get out with friends and just have fun etc.

After vacation I called the owner because of the gelding...
I asked the owner: "How is him?"
And the owner answered: "Yes... I tried to get through to you because of him..."

And I felt something terrible in this short moment somewhere... deep in my heart... :|

"He isn't alive anymore."






That's just a pain which cannot be described... :|

It took about four months to handle that...

The closest person to me to die was my grandfather, and I was really sad at the time, but we were never really close or anything. Otherwise it would be my pets, and that's always sad, but all our pets have lived extended lives anyway, so it's not like their lives were cut short. So I can't say I have that much experience with other's deaths.

Mine, though, is something I am absolutely fearful of. I have so much music to hear and write, that to think that I might not get to do much of it makes me so afraid.

I was sad, of course, when my grandparents died. But each of them had been sick for some time so in a way it was a relief. I mourned them for a while but eventually your life goes on, except that occassionally you think to yourself "I wish xxx was here" or "zzz would have really liked that."

It was harder when I was about eight or nine and two of my friends died; one from a particularly bad strain of chicken pox and the other was hit by a drunk-driver. I just went into denial over them and it took me ages to come to terms with it.

I don't know how I'd deal with anyone in my immediate family dying. Especially if it was a sudden, unexpected thing like a car accident. I worry about that all the time; it would really crush me for that to happen.

What I actually find most difficult ATM is when someone dies was close to a friend. I never know what to say to someone who's in mourning - I tend to put my foot in it and say something tactless.

My mother died one year ago, from cancer, we all believed she would win against it until the last 3 weeks. It went incredibly fast, we realy could see her situation going much worse in little time. I didn't see her dead, only the morning, my little sister came into my room, told me an "this night at ..." and began to cry. At least we had the opportunity to tell her one last time we loved her and wish her goodbye, even if I'm not sure she still understood what we were saying or even knew we where there.

It was pretty hard and still is because we are such an united family and we had to fill the empty place that was left. Sometimes I can't believe she's realy gone and have tendances to deny it, but I know she realy left.

How do we handle Death? We banned him!

Nah, I lost both my grandfathers, and a grandma. All to cancer.
I also lost 2 dogs, some fish, and some birds and a rat.

I just deal with it. Sure, there's some emotions at the funeral, bit other than that, not much. Seems I don't cry that easily.

off-topic-LOLZ at AS.
On-topic: I've lost a cat and one of my grand-dads. the cat was getting on a bit but wasn't exactly old, mind you it had had to have a limb amputation due to a tumour so the tumour could well have spread. I was real sad when it happened but after we buried her it sort of went away. I got little pangs now and then but then I got over it. My grandad died a couple of months afterwards, but again he was old-91- so it wasn't much of a shock. I was sad about it but not as sad as I felt I should be, which made me feel so guilty. and seeing as he'd been in a rest-home for nearly a year and when we'd visited him I'd get bored, I felt even more guilty. but I was 9 so I didn't know better. Damn ,I still feel guilty about it. It's said that you only relise how special someone is when they're gone, and that's very true.
when it comes to thinking of myself dying I used to not like it and try to blot it out, but recently, for some reason during a long car journey, I accepted that I'll die and realised I no longer feared it, so I've come to terms with whenever my death should come. And by the way, I am not an emo.

Dying isn't scary, but missing out on everything else and not doing the stuff you wanted to leave behind when you're dead is.

My friend died and that was hard for me. She was a good friend of mine and I don't think I'll ever really get over her death but I've learnt to live on and honour her memory. Also, my grandmother has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has a year to live, so I'm spending as much time with her as possible but it's gonna be really hard when her time comes. And Bullet Magnet is right, I've come to terms with my mortality and it no longer scares me but missing out on everything does.

I think I'm fairly similar to Wolfpac, I'll have my cry and get depressed, but afterwards I'll go about my day normally. However, I do feel guilt somewhat for not, I guess, 'caring' afterwards.

But I just see it as moving on.

Alcar...

I'm quite the reverse. Being OC and yet retaining a level-headed self-criticism of that OCness, I can easily consider anything I miss out on as mere sentimentality. What genuinely freaks me out is that there will come a time when I'm not able to think, and ponder, and wonder, and contemplate.

Death is inevitable. Period.

I'm not scared of it nor do I try to hide the fact that it will one day come for me.

Btw, Hi all. It's been a while ;).

Lol, I was wondering if you were coming back.

My thoughts on death are that of Soulstice's. I feel it's kind of dumb to fear something that will happen to all of us, inevatably. It may mean eternal nothingness, but that's why you should live your life to the fullest until the day you drop.

i dont fear it... I see it as something beautiful really, and there was a time when i was really excited to find out what was after death :p... I dont mean i wanted to commit suicide, but just researched on it..

Well, first I start with Spiritual Healing, move through to Sound of Perserverence than blast Zombie Ritual off of Scream Bloody Gore.:fuzcool:
Seriously, though, it doesn't bother me anymore. When asked what I know about the afterlife I always reply "I know I will die and the worms will eat me."

So long as zombies do not rise. I'm fully prepared for such an incident, but...

When we die, we are either extinct, so do ot worry about being dead, because we can't, or we go someplace, which is fine and dandy. Unless that place is a hell dimension.

Mathmatically, it's better to believe. Either follow a religion, and either disappear or be born into a heaven, or don't believ, and either disappear or wind up in hell. Of course, choosing a faith is another matter, and we have no way of knowing if any are true or not.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Bullet?

He's talking about Pascal’s Wager, I believe. It goes something like this: You can either believe in God, or can believe He doesn't exist. Being agnostic is tantamount to being athiest.

If God doesn't exist, then the same thing will happen to your soul whether you believed or didn't, i.e. its alleged lack of eternal-ness comes into play and you cease to both think and be.

If God does exist and, as the Bible would have us believe, Heaven is an exclusive club for people whose beliefs can be easily bought with promises of eternal life, well, they're in for a treat. For the rest of us, it's time to get some oars, because we're crossing the Sanzu.

So, in terms of probability, it is best to believe. Or so Pascal said.

p.s. I don't understand how something being natural and/or inevitable negates it being scary.

Right I get it now.

Thanks.

That's why I don't like most religion, it's because it's just an excuse for most people in case there actually is a "god." Which proves them to be nothing more than to be empty headed fools who would rather make sure they are "safe" after life rather than living their own lives to the fullest.

But then you also have to factor in the time wasted in life if you do believe and you are wrong. It all adds up.

Yeah; It's really easy to say "I believe in god" but any self-respecting religion has a certain amount of ritual/rules involved as well.

Which is why I have issues with certain sects of Christianity that claim that the only requirement to get into heaven is to accept Christ as your savior/he died for your sins. So you could be a child-raping murderer but regretting your actions and making some sort of restitution are unnecessary; as long as you accept Christ as your savior before you're executed, you'll get into heaven with all the people who worked hard and lived their lives right.

That's just not right.

Faults in Pascal's Wager(NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN!)
In the Penses Pascal wrote that it is impossible to truly know God so you have no clue how he chooses to deal with people. He could just not give a **** and not reward anybody. He could only punish on earth and do nothing after you die. Hey, God is unknowable to us, who is to say that he won't only reward people who constantly wear long johns or go commando. Even sicker is that he might reward true evil doers. Or, bizarre as it may seem, a deity can be thought up as rewarding atheists and agnostics for being questors and intellectually honest. Point being, belief is not enough.
Second point, does anybody know how many deities there are? Mankind has created well over 3000. Even being very, very kind to the Wager and saying that their is a lap-over of 100 that means there are 30 deities that you have to pick between. This "argument" is centuries old and has been utterly demolished time and time again and yet it keeps coming back. 20 minutes in the library's philosophy section or surfing the web should be enough to show you that the argument, and by extention the wager, is worthless.

I think what you've done is very healthy. I think people tend to hold on to the past to much and it causes them immense pain. Enjoy the ones you love while they are with you and when they die mourn them for a while and then when you are done celebrate their lives by living yours to the fullest.

I deal with death by shooting foxes.

Foxes? How fun can that be?

I never said it was fun but it has to be done.

So when you are getting over death, the fox dying doesn't matter?

Appearantly not.

What are you two on about? They're only animals and do not experience pain in the way you or I do.

Totally. I've actually started torturing turtles to let off my anger. It's quite useful.

Hurrah! Someone finally detected my (obvious) sarcasm. Ain't you a bunch of bright sparks? ;)